Threat Level Black - Страница 36

The wine they’d had over dinner, not to mention the conversation, had left him in a mellow mood. Howe followed her through the house: It was a house, not a condominium, and it was for sale, not rent. Her voice echoed through the empty room like faint music, luring him onward.

And her perfume. That, too, was light, almost a suggestion of a scent rather than the smell itself. A flower tickled by the wind.

God, Howe told himself, let’s not go overboard. She’s just showing me apartments.

And houses. One house. Her dream house.

There were four bedrooms upstairs.

“Master bedroom, kids’ room, guest room,” said Alice. “Assuming there’s kids.”

“A lot of rooms.”

Jesus, what a dumb thing to say.

“What do you think? Isn’t it great?” she said when they reached the downstairs landing.

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t trust his tongue anymore.

“Want to know the price?”

Howe shrugged. “It’s kind of big.”

“He’ll come down, I know.”

He shrugged again.

“One point two.”

“How much?”

“A million two hundred thousand. But he’ll come down. He built it on spec.” She flicked her hair back from her shoulder. “I don’t represent him, so I can tell you this. I know he’d come down a lot.”

“A million dollars. God.”

“Payments would be about what the condo was. Less, depending on the down payment.”

“I don’t know if I have a down payment.”

Alice made a face. “Your company could always loan you the money.”

Howe didn’t answer, though he realized she was probably right.

“Oh, I know, it’s my dream not yours,” she said, waving her hand at him. “I have to get back.”

“Date?”

“Oh, God, no. I always stop by and see my dad on Wednesdays. Should we set up another appointment?”

“I’d like to.”

“Tomorrow at four?”

“Tomorrow at four. Sounds good. Your office?”

“My office.”

On the way back to the real estate parking lot where he’d left his car, Howe decided he wanted to kiss her. But somehow he couldn’t find the right chance. He smiled, waved, and got into his car to drive back to his motel.

* * *

The light on Howe’s phone blinked steadily as he came in, indicating he had a message. The motel’s voice mail system was tricky to use, and Howe finally had to call down to the desk for help. The call was from a man who said he had some questions about something Howe had told a mutual friend. The man spoke so quickly on the phone that Howe had trouble making out the phone number he left, and couldn’t entirely decipher his name; it sounded like “Woeful.”

It was past nine o’clock. Howe thought he’d try the number anyway; maybe if the caller had an answering machine or voice mail he’d get at least an idea what this was about.

“Wu,” said the voice on the other end of the line, picking up right after the first ring.

“This is Bill Howe.”

“Colonel Howe, thank you for calling me back. Where are you now?”

Howe hesitated but then told him he was in his hotel.

“There’s a diner about two miles down the highway if you take a right out of your driveway,” said Wu. “Can you meet me there in half an hour?”

“What’s this about?” said Howe.

“I’ll have to talk to you in person.”

“Does this have to do with NADT?”

“I have to talk to you in person,” repeated Wu.

Howe thought back to his tour of the NADT scientific sections earlier that day, trying to connect the man’s voice and name with a face. But there had been too many people he either didn’t know at all or had met only once or twice.

“Half hour. Sure.”

Wu hung up before Howe could ask how he would recognize him.

Chapter 15

It turned out to be surprisingly difficult for Tyler to arrange transportation across the Korean border. Inspection teams simply weren’t afforded the priority that supplies and humanitarian aid were; what’s more, the group’s connection to the Pentagon seemed to work against it. When Tyler found four spaces on a Navy helicopter that had to stop nearby, he practically jumped up in glee, even though it would mean leaving behind half the team and all of the people they were taking for security. Tyler hustled to the airfield with Colonel Yorn, Somers, and a CIA paramilitary officer named Jake Dempsey. They just barely made the helicopter, and had to squeeze in amid extra medical supplies the corpsmen were transporting. Things were so tight that the pilot told them they were five pounds under their permitted takeoff weight.

“Good thing I didn’t have much breakfast,” said Somers.

The flight took several hours and was punctuated by a stop near the DMZ to refuel. No one spoke the whole way, and expressions grew more somber as they flew. Tyler had experienced this during combat: Even the most hardened veteran and shameless wiseass tended to focus on the job ahead as zero hour drew near. But to him, this was an easy gig; he hadn’t even considered the possibility that they might be fired at.

And yet, that was a real danger. From birth, North Koreans had been taught to hate Americans, and while their army and government had collapsed, their hatred surely percolated just under the surface. Two American soldiers with M16s and grenade launchers patrolled near the runway as the helicopter put down. Seeing them reminded Tyler that they were deep in enemy territory and heavily outnumbered.

A pair of Hummers waited to take them to the forward headquarters of the division hosting them. Tyler got into one with Somers, listening as the historian talked with the driver and escort. Both men started out taciturn but within a few minutes Somers’s easygoing style had them relaxed and, if not quite loquacious, at least speaking in sentences and paragraphs rather than single words.

“They’re curious,” said the corporal behind the wheel. “I get the feeling they think we have two heads and they’re looking to see where we’re hiding the other.”

Tyler watched Somers as he carried on similar conversations with the staff at the headquarters and then later at their billet, a villa that had apparently been vacated by a high-ranking government official during the coup. While Tyler had initially wondered whether to take the older man along, he saw now it had been a good move. In just a few hours the historian had probably done the work of a dozen toiling analysts and poll takers, eliciting candid, off-the-cuff remarks. The consensus among American service people was clear: The North Koreans would be willing to go along with things for the short term at least, so long as there were reasonable measures to both keep them safe from retribution and to feed them.

“Hungriest people I ever saw,” one of the lieutenants told them.

That seemed to be the bottom line, and Tyler made sure to repeat it several times during their conference call with Moore at the end of the day. After the call, he thought maybe that was his problem as well. A full meal, a bit of rest, and he’d be ready for whatever happened in the morning.

Chapter 16

Howe was on his second cup of coffee when the tall man stopped in front of his booth. His round, Asian face had been marked by a double scar along the right cheek, as if he’d been scratched there by a two-fingered claw.

“Are you Howe?” asked the man.

The question took him by surprise: If Wu worked for NADT, as he’d thought, he wouldn’t need to ask. And Howe didn’t remember meeting anyone with a scar so prominent on his face.

If he suggested they go anywhere, Howe told himself, he’d resist.

Wu slid into the booth. The waitress came right over and he ordered a decaf coffee. When she left, he reached into his pocket and took out a thin wallet.

“I’m with the CIA,” said Wu, showing his credentials. “I’m sorry to make such a production out of this. I couldn’t trust your phone at the motel, and I have to have the report together in a few hours.”

“Which report?” asked Howe.

“Someone on the NSC staff mentioned that you saw UAVs on the airstrip in North Korea.”

Howe nodded. Wu took out a small notepad. He’d written a brief summary of one of the reports Howe had made earlier. They went over it quickly.

“That’s basically what I saw,” said Howe when he finished. “I didn’t get that close to them.”

“But they were definitely there?”

“Yes, sir, they were.”

Wu nodded. He waited as the waitress arrived with his coffee, then took a few sips before continuing.

“The Koreans aren’t known to have any sort of craft like this,” said Wu.

“So I’ve heard.”

“You didn’t take a picture or anything?”

Howe laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you know about what I was doing there and what happened.”

“I had to ask.”

“I’m sure of what I saw, but only of what I saw. Whether those aircraft were real airplanes, UAVs, whatever, I don’t know. I talked to someone at NADT who made some guesses about how they’d be powered and that sort of thing. I can have him get in touch with you tomorrow.”

“That’s all right. I think really I have enough.” Wu sipped his coffee. Obviously he had access to any number of experts. “One last question: Would you agree that these aircraft should be secured and examined?”